A day late, due to Darth Real Life. mssilverstar, I apologize. Well, first of all, this is highly subjective, and whenever I read other people's resplies to similar question, I'm reminded of that - what's aged for one person has remained fantastic for another, and vice versa. So, I make no claim to speak for anyone but myself. Also "has aged well" for me isn't the equivalent of "represents exactly the values I myself stick to today". And I'm drawing an arbitrary line at pre WWI media of all kinds. So, a selected but by no means exclusive number of media I find have aged well:

Media aimed at or marketed for primarily a young audience:

Book and film: The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. As poetic and compelling to read and watch now as it was then. Morever, German kids lucked out in the film version because Christopher Lee dubs himself, speaking King Haggard in German as well as in the English original, which is why despite otherwise being usually a fiend for original versions I have a soft spot for the German dubbing. Christopher Lee speaking Haggard's lines in German = awesome.

Book: The Never-Ending Story by Michael Ende. Naturally, the original edition with the red and green letters and the illuminations at the start of each chapter. (There were some cheap editions around the late 90s, I think, in boring black print. Heresy!) I am fond of Michael Ende's work in general, but the Never-Ending Story, the book, is a particular favourite. (And the film was I think the first time I got really upset as a young reader because of the massive changes, including one that misses the entire point of the book. Not as upset as Michael Ende himself was, of course, but then if your wife while watching this has a stroke and dies, you won't be inclined to forgive the production team any time soon.) (At least poor Michael Ende himself didn't live to see Italian right wing extremists steal the name "Atreju" for their fascist enterprises. The man, a determined anti fascist and cosmopolitan, would have been horrified beyond belief. Given he invented the concept of the '"Nothing", which eats creatures of fantasy and transforms them into lies that poison our world, he might n ot have been completely surprised, though.)

TV Show: Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer, based on Michael Ende's novel, dramatised by the Augsburger Puppenkiste. I like the book, but I love the tv show, which I adored as a child and which is still adorable to me now. I find myself humming the Lummerland-Song even now. There's just something about those puppets playing out the story that live action cannot capture.


Media aimed at or market primarly for adults:

Film: The Kid, directed by Charlie Chaplin. Still my go to silent movie if I want to convince people who haven't seen one before of the greatness of the genre. It just works, even the surreal dream sequence, and I never get tired of it.

Book: Child of the Morning by Pauline Gedge. Research has marched on (i.e. now it's doubtful whether it was Thutmose III who tried his best to erase Hatshepsut from history), but this novel from the 1970s is still my favourite take on Hatshepsut, and one of my all time favourite novels set in Ancient Egypt, full stop. And I cry like a baby each time when our heroine's rule is ended.

Film: Lawrence of Arabia, directed by David Lean, script by Robert Bolt. Deserves all the accolades it ever got. Not just for the breathtaking cinematography but also for making its main character increasingly broken and neurotic and not a triumphant savior figure. Are there still things to complain about, from Omar Sharif being the only Arab actor playing a prominent Arab character onwards? Sure. But is the film stll gloriously shot ("moon shadows" included) and acted and scripted? You bet. (And Peter O'Toole should have gotten the damn Oscar.)

TV Show: Babylon 5. Since I did my most recent rewatch not that long ago, I can tell with some certainty. You can date the show, absolutely. (ISN is so a product of the 1990s, not just because of the CNN reference but because the entire human part of the galaxy seems to watch just the one news channel. Original Anna Sheridan's hairstyle is another case in point. And Ivanova/Talia never quite transgressing the line of deniability before she leaves, even though JMS went as far as he could in the day and age and we do get the unambigous "I loved Talia" later. And then there are the multiple "crazy lone bomber" plots, which at the time I did not realize must have been inspired by the Oklahoma bombing in the US.) But the overall show still holds up magnificently in its epic storytelling, with intersecting storylines and character developments. It really was, as promised, a "novel on television", and even decades later, I don't think I've seen something like the individual and the shared plotlines for Londo and G'Kar since. (BTW, I recently watched a retrospective on the show by a vidder on YouTube, which by and large I thought well done - though more human centric than I would have, but then that's my perspective on the show -, but what cracked me up was our narrator, when talking about the original pilot, The Gathering, saying: "The characters most different to their later selves in the show have to be the ambassadors. Londo is almost entirely comic relief, G'Kar is a villain, and Delenn is both ruthless and devious." Err. Ahem. Cough.) Anyway, it was the Third Age of Mankind, and I was there. The Name: Babylon 5.

As mentioned, this is just a selection, there are others, but these were the ones coming immediately to mind.

The other days

I love it when actual history gives me the rare kind of triangle I like instead of loathe: E. M. Forster shared a policeman with the man's wife for thirty years. Am not surprised this only started to work better once Forster developed a relationship of its own with May (the wife) as well and came to befriend her as a person, instead of just seeing her as a a threat and disruption to his relationship with Bob (the husband). See, in fiction - and I mean pro fic and fanfic alike - I resent a "A and B love each other, but B is also with C/married to C; C however is just a beard/nonety because clearly the love of A and B must reign supreme" scenario. Not only if C is female which C is in about 70 of the cases, at least as far as fanfic is concerned. I mean, it may happen this way, and of course if we're talking history (and present in parts of the world today) then many gay men had to deal with marriages that were a concession to their society's homophobia. But I still always wonder about C and wonder what was/is in it for her (or in rarer cases him), so those rare cases where A loves B and B loves A but B also loves C and A either loves C from the get go or developes feelings for C in the course of the story make me happy as a reader. In this particular case, while I am unsurprised and amused to hear that Forster before meeting Bob Buckingham had this snobbish fantasy of being "looked after by the robust and grateful lower classes" (I mean, I read Maurice) only to find the real article was far more knowledgable and educated and with opinions of his own then he'd imagined, I'm also fascinated at how he went from hostile toleration to actual friendship with May - via an intense correspondance while she was recovering from an illness. Which to me makes so much sense for a writer.

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Of course, sometimes the historical artefacts that make it into papers are far more of the "oh dear/what the hell" sort. The FBI asking MI5 to spy on Chaplin for them after Chaplin had been banned from returning to the US isn't suprising - though really, chaps, you so deserved Philby, Burgess and McLean when you allowed the cousins to waste your time like that - but George Orwell denouncing him as a secret commie before his (Orwell's) death was. Meanwhile, it's fascinating to watch this British newsreel about Chaplin's arrival in Britain in 1952 for what it doesn't mention, to wit, the news that Chaplin received en route from the US to Britain via ship. You know, that telegram about his greencard being no more. I can't imagine the British media not knowing about this by the time Chaplin arrived (the journey then took a week), and yet, not a word in the newsreel, but a distinct not so subtext of "WE love you even if the Americans don't anymore".

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Courtesy of the BBCiPlayer, I watched Small Island, a tv two parter based on the novel by Andrea Levy. I haven't read the book but loved the film, minus the voiceover narration which felt like the one from Blade Runner (before Ridley Scott got rid of it in the Director's Cut) in that you get the sense the whole thing was filmed originally without said voiceover and then some studio boss said "but I'm not sure the audience will understand all if you DON'T EXPLAIN STUFF IN DETAIL, get on that", and so they hastily added it. But voiceover aside, the rest is superb, acting and story both. Small Island focuses on Jamaican immigrants to Britain during and after WWII. Though "immigrants" is already an unfair term: as Small Island points out, the Jamaicans were raised to regard England as "the Mother Country" and to revere all things British, only to find themselves in for racism and treatment as anything but equals once they actually were there. (Thus the "small island" of the title is Britain, not Jamaica.) The story is also remarkable for what it gets right by not doing. Because of the main characters, one, Queenie, is white, but at no point do you get the impression the black characters are there to serve her story, or that they need her to get their rights as people. (Queenie, Gilbert and Hortense are occasionally helpful to each other, but it's a two way street always, and they're treated as equally important characters by the narrative in what they all contribute to the plot.) You get a good sense of the Jamaican community, and especially of post-war Britain (still dealing with rationing, war left poverty and rebuilding on all levels). The characters are richly fleshed out and not caricatures, not even Queenie's husband Bernard who easily could have been (he's a dull man, which isn' t the same as a dull character, and very much a bigoted racist, but he's also damaged by his war experience and completely out of his depth with Queenie). (Given that Bernard, who is "only" a supporting character and hence often absent, is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, I wonder how many of Cumberbatch's new fans will watch this and complain he's not being sexy and/or dominating the story.)

The characters who really make Small Island are Hortense (Naomie Harris) and Gilbert (David Oyelowo) (and okay, Queenie (Ruth Wilson), too), the two Jamaicans whose dreams of coming to the "mother country" and experiences with the reality of it move the story along. Their relationship is a story trope which, if well done, I like very much: marriage of convenience between two initially hostile parties who then start to appreciate each other for what they are and come to care deeply as they go through adversities together. Gilbert originally enlists into the RAF out of idealism, finds himself relegated to chauffeur instead of getting the chance to fly, but returns to England after the war nonetheless in hope of better chances. His sense of fun, sociability and natural kindness make him a great foil for Hortense who is tightly controlled, proud and distrustful of strangers. Hortense is a teacher and her dream of becoming a teacher in England is what sets the plot in motion. Wanting to change your life is a running thread through the story - Gilbert and Hortense want it, but also Queenie (who starts out as a working class girl from Yorkshire and comes to London to do just that) and Hortense's cousin/foster brother Michael is the first to leave Jamaica (as he'll later leave England) and has a brief affair with Queenie. The only character who wants to get back to a past status instead of wanting change from life is Bernard.

I kept thinking "where do I know Naomie Harris' voice from" and then it finally clicked from me: she played Kalypso in the Pirates of the Carribean movies. Mind you, it really isn't so easy to recognize her, because a) Kalypso was always shown with heavy make-up, and b) Hortense's precise elocution as a teacher is quite different from the way the films let Kalypso speak. But it was great to see her here in a main part. David Oyelowo I actually had seen on stage before, in the RSC adaption of Aphra Behn's Oronooko (he played the title role), and as Volpone's servant in Volpono; he's incredibly endearing and moving as Gilbert here, the type of screen character you fall in love with.

In conclusion: very much worth watching. On iPlayer or elsewhere!

On a tangentially related and thematic note, I don't know why until 2010 I thought Shirley Bassey was American, but I did, and only two years ago did I discover she was Welsh, from Cardiff, no less. So because RPF has corrupted me and Torchwood has Jack namedropping all the time anyway, I keep wondering whether anyone ever wrote her meeting Jack Harkness. Here she is with one of her signature songs, performed in Cardiff in 1985 when she was already a living legend:

Recently, a friend of mine wondered in an aside what a Watchmen adaption by Orson Welles would have been like. Clearly, this was an idea of pure genius. Because Welles had both the absolute fearlessness and cheek, and while managing to infuriate half the fanbase before ruthlessly jettisoning some of the main characters along with subplots and plundering other Moore works for dialogue inserts, he'd have created something breathtakingly original in its own right.

(Also the meta of it would have been fun. Because in Watchmen the book, one of the earliest excerpts from Hollis Mason's memoirs mentions listening as a fan to Orson Welles on the radio, playing The Shadow/Lamont Cranston, one of the earliest superheroes.)

This train of thought of course brought me inevitably to contemplating other adaptions of comics classics by legendary directors, or rather, which legendary director would match best to which classic comics. Here are some ideas:

Charlie Chaplin: Mad Love by Paul Dini. Come on, it would have been awesome. Given how Chaplin loved to branch out (see him playing both Hitler in The Great Dictator and a serial killer in Monsieur Verdoux), you know he'd have been utterly unable to resist casting himself as the Joker. And as Harley Quinn? Paulette Godard, of course. However, in my head this adaption is a silent one, because though I do like Chaplin's later sound movies as well, the silent film is his true and most perfect medium. It would have been the best and most unique of all Batmenverse based films.

Alfred Hitchcock: The Dark Phoenix arc, by Chris Claremont. Hitchcock, expert in neurotic heroines and heroes as well as people going mad and trying to hide it, would have excelled at the original Jean Grey tragedy. Mind you, given that as Joseph Cotten put it in his memoirs he didn't understand why actresses didn't dye their hair blonde for the privilege of working for him, he'd have been sorely tempted in switching hair colour between Jean and Emma (if the Hellfire Club would have shown up in his adaption, that is, and knowing Hitchcock, I think it would have), but in the end he might have resisted.

Billy Wilder: Alias by Brian Bendis. Noir look at the underside of the Marvelverse, first person narration that really works instead of coming across as superfluous, sharp dialogue, inner brokenness? So a Wilder thing. He'd have probably ended up having a hate/hate relationship with Bendis as he did with Raymond Chandler on their shared script for Double Indemnity, but the result would so have been worth it. Including Barbara Stanwyck as Jessica Jones.

It was back to work for me, meaning the fabulous Feuchtwanger archive at the USC. There is a thrill about going through original manuscripts, letters etc. which is unique to libraries, and always in my mind connects to A.S. Byatt's novel Possession. Now of course I never made that kind of monumental discovery, but in addition to a lot of useful background material for my thesis written over a decade ago, I found, and am still finding, fragments of the past that might not have literate merit yet still tell us something about the people they hail from, and haven't turned up in any biographies. Take, for example, a letter written by Charlie Chaplin to Lion Feuchtwanger shortly after finding, on the middle of the ocean between the US and Britain, that his greencard had been revoked. To stake that Chaplin was bitter about this is putting it mildly. In interviews and in his memoirs, he was restrained, of course, and in time he and the US made up, but in a private letter to a friend and shortly after the event, you get an acid blast like this:

It is so wonderful to be away from that creepy cancer of hate where one speaks in whispers, and to abide in a political temperature where everything is normal contrasted to that torrid, dried-up, prune-souled desert of a country you live in. Even at its best, with its vast arid stretches, its bleached sun-kissed hills, its bleak sun-lit Pacific Ocean, its bleak acres of oil derricks and its bleak thriving prosperity, it makes me shudder to think I spent 40 years of my life in it.

On a less bitter note and more amusing note, you also get confirmation that Chaplin, for all his leftist views, was still a child of the Empire. Here he is, again to Lion Feuchtwanger, about having met Jawarahal Pandit Nehru (a genuine socialist, btw), the first Prime Minister of India:

I spent a couple of days with Nehru at the time when he was helping to negotiate the Korean truce. The day I visited him Rhee had let the war prisoners escape, and Nehru was terribly worried and shocked abut it all. Cablegrams were coming and going all the time I was there. I found him quite interesting; we talked a great deal about Lord Mountbatten and what a splendid job he did handing back India to the Indians – the mert of which I do not quite understand from the English point of view! He seemed quite a nice man but a little pompous, but then that may be the Indian manner.

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Some more pictures of selenak's Los Angeles adventures, as I visited the Getty Center yesterday:

( Picspam ahoy )